It gives a feeling but not the full flavor of a desperate time when theater played the role of political provocateur.

Police investigators today had to deny widespread reports that political provocateurs may have been behind the theft of Mr. Cuccia's body.

His reputation as a political provocateur was amplified by Punishment Park, a story of violent political conflict in the United States that coincided with the Kent State Massacre.

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Noam Chomsky, the M.I.T. linguist and political provocateur, was constantly on the telephone, giving interviews to news organizations.

Žižek, though, is also a political provocateur and an absurdist prankster.

Smith has published both fiction and non-fiction, and bills himself as a "writer, songwriter, and political provocateur."

Abbie Hoffman, the former civil rights organizer turned political provocateur appeared regularly during the tumultuous years from 1968-1973.

Now more of a moderate, her husband has also played the political provocateur, and Mrs. Olmert freely admits she has found his nationalism hard to abide.

He argues that he is being singled out because of his reputation as a political provocateur.

But its fantasy that a movie about a Presidential assassination plot could trigger the real thing carries the notion of the film maker as political provocateur to ludicrous comic extremes.